Explore, enjoy, and protect the planet.

terminal groins

By Laura Leslie
RALEIGH, N.C. — State House lawmakers voted 80-33 Wednesday to ease restrictions on four terminal groin projects at the coast.
The House version of Senate Bill 151 is a far cry from from the original Senate version, which would allow terminal groin construction in every inlet in the state, as well as removing parts of current law intended to protect property owners and taxpayers.

On Wednesday, the NC Senate passed two bills marking serious rollbacks for environmental protections in North Carolina. With the crossover deadline rapidly approaching, the passage of these bills in the Senate means they will be eligible to be heard in the House at any time for the rest of this session.

S 151 largely upends 2011 compromise legislation sponsored by Sens. Brown and Rabon. S 151 removes the cap on the number of terminal groins which can be built and drops provisions designed to ensure that local communities do not incur debt without a vote of the people. S 151 also removes fiscal protections intended to ensure that neighboring properties will be compensated for any ensuing damage.
“North Carolinians enjoy natural beaches that are the envy of the East Coast. This is because our state leaders have historically adopted a conservative management policy that bans hardened structures—seawalls, jetties and groins of any kind—from our ocean beaches,” said Molly Diggins, state director of the NC Sierra Club.
“Today, the Senate gutted compromise legislation passed just two years ago in order to make it easier to construct hardened structures,” added Diggins. “Today’s vote is bad for beaches, bad for taxpayers, and bad for North Carolinians who love their state’s natural beaches."

The Associated Press - RALEIGH — The North Carolina Senate passed two major environmental rollbacks Wednesday ahead of a deadline over objections from Democratic lawmakers.
The bills would repeal rules for managing pollutants in Jordan Lake and a host of restrictions on new jetties along the coast that critics say can shift damage to neighboring properties. Bills that don't require tax changes or spending and fail to clear at least one chamber by Thursday night are essentially dead through the end of the session in 2014.

It’s a busy week at the General Assembly as the crossover deadline approaches this Thursday. As legislators try to push their bills through by the deadline, there are a number of bills that will have a huge impact on our air, water, and natural places.
A bill that would roll back the Jordan Lake Rules, S515, will come up in the Senate on Wednesday or Thursday. The bill is a move in the wrong direction for the conservation of Lake Jordan. Cleanup efforts at the lake have already been delayed after legislative battles in 2010 and 2012, and the passage of this bill would only further delay efforts. Additionally, this bill seeks to focus on the treatment of pollution, rather than controlling the sources of pollution. This isn’t just a delay tactic that kicks the can down the road, but it completely repeals the Jordan Lake Rules and puts nothing in its place other than a legislative study. It could take years to develop a new set of rules, while current efforts to clean up the lake are halted.